Sherrington: 10 wins might not save Texas coach Mack Brown's job

2/26

George Frey/Getty Images

PROVO, UT - SEPTEMBER 7: A fan holds her child as she runs for cover after being trapped in a torrential rain downpour before the game against BYU Cougars and the Texas Longhorns at an NCAA football game on September 7, 2013 at LaVell Edwards Stadium in Provo, Utah. The game has been temporally postponed. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)

Mack Brown had two choices: He could stick with the young defensive coordinator who appeared in over his head, or he could attempt to save his own job. He did what any head coach would do. And it just might work.

All he has to do now is win at least nine of his last 10 games, try not to get blown out by Oklahoma for the third year in a row and hope Texas A&M doesn’t win a national title. Or another Heisman.

And even if all the above falls into place, it still may not be enough to save him.

Not if the money dries up, too.

Texas’ 40-21 loss to BYU — in which the Cougars ran for 550 yards, a UT record for futility — may finally register as Mack’s signature loss. Every Texas coach has one. For Mack’s predecessor, John Mackovic, it was 66-3 to unranked UCLA in ’97. For the rest, it usually had something to do with embarrassing themselves and the university at the State Fair.

Mack has four of those flops on his résumé, too, maybe more, depending on your sensibilities. A difference up to now between those losses and Mackovic’s Waterloo was that Oklahoma is pretty stout under Bob Stoops.

BYU is not Oklahoma in its prime. The reason we know this is because the Cougars lost their opener to Virginia. Virginia. The same Virginia that got rolled by Oregon, 59-10, last week.

Against BYU, anyway, the Cavs had sense enough to make the Cougars’ quarterback, Taysom Hill, beat them with his arm, not his legs. Forced to throw, Hill completed just 13 of 40 passes for 175 yards. He had 42 of BYU’s 187 rushing yards in a 19-16 loss.

The plan against BYU is fairly simple, even if the execution isn’t: Load eight or nine in the box and grab the first guy running past.

Texas’ defense, on the other hand, read BYU’s option like it came from Stephen Hawking’s playbook. Manny Diaz, Texas’ former defensive coordinator, kept sending his men on charges upfield, which is the worst thing you can do against a running quarterback. Will Muschamp understood as much in Johnny Manziel’s debut last year. At halftime, he told his Florida defenders to hold their lanes no matter what developed in A&M’s backfield. Their discipline put a cork in Manziel’s magic, and the Gators escaped College Station with a win.

Diaz made no such adjustments at halftime, even as Hill was running for 259 yards, the most by an FBS quarterback since some guy named Vince Young in 2005.

Frankly, it’s hard to pinpoint Mack’s greatest sin in this fiasco. Was it that he didn’t intervene when he saw the game plan last week, or the results at halftime? That he didn’t fire Diaz after last year?

Or that he hired Diaz in the first place?

Tommy Tuberville has his faults, not the least of which was getting up for the restroom while entertaining recruits at Lubbock’s 50-Yard Line and never coming back. But if the man lacks manners on a first date, he knows defense. Mack called him twice for recommendations on defensive coordinators. He recommended Gene Chizik and Muschamp, making Tubby 2-for-2.

Manny Diaz?

“I’d never heard of him,” Tuberville told me last year.

Mack figured he was getting an up-and-comer, which is probably not how Texas should shop. As Barry Switzer put it recently, there’s no better job than Texas. The people in charge shouldn’t have to bet on the upside.

Mack might have been hedging his bets all along. Greg Robinson is a fundamentally sound coach whose in-your-face personality may incite Texas’ underachievers. And what a coincidence, he was already on board, working as an analyst for the football program! In football parlance, Robinson is what football experts like Jerry Jones like to call a “safety valve.”

He’ll have his work cut out for him. As shocking as the loss to BYU was, the signs of slippage have been unmistakable. Every year, another story of a quarterback Mack missed. For all the hype about winning recruiting titles, what matters is how players come out on the other side. The last two drafts, only three Texas players were taken each year. Texas hadn’t had so few any year since 2005.

Jackson Jeffcoat leads a deeper talent pool this time, and if that didn’t increase expectations, Mack did. He practically told fans to expect greatness, and instead he’s given them the best case yet for his retirement party.

Mack has done a wonderful job at Texas, winning a national title and restoring a national reputation. He’s also made the school more money than any other football program in the nation, which is something else Mackovic didn’t have going for him.

Mack’s bottom line made it easy for DeLoss Dodds and his boss, Bill Powers, to have his back. But Powers’ days are numbered at Texas, and Dodds, at 74, isn’t far behind. Rumors persist that big donors have placed their hands over their wallets instead of their hearts. If Texas stops selling out big games, pressure on Mack will mount.

Of course, he could still save his job. Ten in a row should do it, probably. As long as Johnny Football doesn’t beat Alabama again.

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About Kevin Sherrington

Kevin Sherrington, a general sports columnist, was born in Dallas and grew up in Houston. He has worked at five newspapers in Texas. He has worked at The Dallas Morning News since 1985. He had no idea his career would come to blogging.